It is a disgrace that Headingley does not have an Ashes Test

Telegraph

6 hours ago

We have just been treated to a marvellous Headingley Test match. It had something for everyone, kept us all glued to our seats for five days and ended with a superb England victory.
England have now won six Tests in a row at Headingley and yet the England and Wales Cricket Board has not given Yorkshire a Test match in 2027 or 2028.
Even the last match England lost at Headingley, in 2017, was a marvellous game of cricket, with West Indies chasing 321 to win.
The 2027 Ashes will have no matches further north than Nottingham. Old Trafford has not been given a Test match either in 2027.
The north of England has been shut out of the next Ashes. It is a disgrace. The England team should be for the whole of the country, not just for people in the midlands and the south.
I know the ECB have a lot of cricket grounds to keep happy but they could easily arrange the 2027 Ashes so there is one match in the north, one in the Midlands, two in London and still keep the Rose Bowl on the list.
It is not good for northern cricket not to have an Ashes Test. Lancashire, Yorkshire and the north are the heartlands of club cricket but the ECB are so London-centric that they do not see it.
Why would you not want to play at Headingley? It produces great cricket matches and England win there. Surely you want to take Australia back to the place where they were stunned by Ben Stokes in 2019 and blown away by Mark Wood in 2023. All those nightmares will come flooding back.
Of course I love Headingley but this is not my Yorkshire bias. There is a reason why Australia usually start an Ashes series in Brisbane: they win at the Gabba. The last time they lost to England in Brisbane was 1986. This winter they are starting in Perth, a place where England have won one Test match since 1970.
We should do the same, play at the grounds where we have a record of winning.
England were brilliant against India but a lot of credit should go to the Headingley pitch which started dry and grassless and made for a superb Test match. Well done to the head groundsman Richard Robinson and his staff.
Too many groundsmen leave some moisture or a bit of grass on the surface to make sure the pitch lasts four or five days. They are frightened that if the pitch gets too dry, it may break up with too much spin and too much uneven bounce.
Headingley did not break up because it was perfectly prepared. There was only the odd ball bowled from the Pavilion End that jumped and rapped the batsmen on the gloves and some spin from outside the line of the stumps where the bowlers' big boots had plonked down.
This pitch was a dream for batsmen but good bowlers who bent their back with pace and aggression took wickets. Ordinary straight-up-and-down bowlers were severely punished. That's how it should be.
It sounds to me like a perfect pitch for an Ashes Test match. Shame it will be left idle and missing out.
England won and they entertained. No Bazball, just good, sensible and positive cricket. Exactly what we wanted.
Nobody exemplified this better than Zak Crawley in the second innings. It was the best I have seen him bat against the new ball and hopefully it is a sign that the penny has dropped at last. He made a special effort to let the ball come to him and defend closer to his pad while meeting the ball with the full face of his bat.
Usually he plays across his left pad and closes the bat face, which is how he got out in the first innings. But in the second innings, Zak left the ball well outside off stump and that forces the opening bowlers to bowl straighter making it easier to hit them to the onside.
He only had one awful lapse trying to hit Jasprit Bumrah over midwicket from 12 inches outside off stump. In the end, 45 minutes of patience paid off because when the second-string bowlers came on they were easy meat for him.
His fifty was so pleasing on the eye; a measured performance. His 65 off 126 balls probably seemed slow compared to the way he normally tries to whack the ball as soon as he gets in. Well done, and please can we have more controlled, carefully executed batting performances like this?
If I could make one helpful comment it is that he should try to take a bigger stride forward and bend the front knee more to get closer to the pitch of the ball which will bring his head right over the ball. Apart from that, excellent performance.
5️⃣0️⃣ up for Zak Crawley 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿👏 pic.twitter.com/aE4PayvXPV
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 24, 2025
I was impressed with England's thinking and assessing the changing situations on the last day. Ben Duckett was the star with his splendid 149 but he and Crawley gave the team a dream start.
It was a deliberate attempt to blunt the new ball and particularly to stop Bumrah taking early wickets. There were no rash strokes or attempts to thrash the new ball, but at the same time they hit anything loose. It was smart thinking and once that platform of 92 for none at lunch was achieved, I always felt England would win.
Duckett was outstanding. He had a super defence, middled almost everything, was never in any difficulty but was able to punish a loose ball. It was impossible to keep him quiet. He played some sumptuous drives, pulls, hooks and his reverse sweeping off Ravindra Jadeja bowling into the bowlers' footholes was soul-destroying for the bowler.
Keep that going Ben Duckett, what a shot! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 pic.twitter.com/d2hGr6GeNe
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 24, 2025
Test matches can swing on small things. The Indian second-string seam bowling was ordinary. Shardul Thakur bowled gentle, buffet bowling. There was no pace, no swing or seam. It was 'help yourself' stuff. Just lots of 'hit me' balls. My mum could have whacked him with my famous stick of rhubarb.
Prasidh Krishna was too short with no pace in the morning session on the final day. I put more energy into my golf game than he did his bowling. It was different in the afternoon when he bent his back a bit, pitched the ball up and found some zip and nip off the pitch surprising Crawley and Ollie Pope.
Bumrah and Mohammad Siraj gave everything in the morning session but just could not get any wickets. It hurt India that their best two bowlers did not take one wicket on the last day. On top of that the Indian catching was poor throughout the match and the ground fielding was sloppy as well.
The worst culprit was the young superstar batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal who shelled three catches. Everyone drops a catch but three in a match is too expensive. He made 105 runs in two innings but he cost India more than the runs he scored.